


Knock, Knock

by AllySally11



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:23:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6529171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllySally11/pseuds/AllySally11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by a writing prompt: "After decades of beaming messages into space seeking intelligent life, Earth receives a response - "Stop broadcasting. You'll attract them." (If anyone can remind me if where I found it, let me know so I can add credit!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock, Knock

Larry Kirby is a great listener. Tonight he sits alone on another of his long nightly dates with himself listening to white noise in his home office after an even longer and even more boring day. His insomnia had been getting the better of him the past few weeks, so what better way to deal with it than to take work home with you? Larry loved his job though. One of the few who were lucky enough to follow their dreams to the job of a lifetime, he’d landed a permanent position with SERENDIP not too long after finishing his doctorate in radio astronomy. On nights where he was too restless, he would come downstairs to listen to whatever, or whomever, wanted to talk. Nothing too different than listening to the static of an AM radio station, but with the hope that little green men may send you a love note made it much more interesting. That’s also when you start to sound crazy. Radio astronomers don’t really “listen” in the traditional sense to the signals they receive, but Larry liked when the static was turned up. Partly so he could walk around his apartment without being tethered by a pair of headphones, but also in the hopes that it would resonate in his head as white noise and help him shut his eyes for a little while. This particular night, he’d had enough of staring at the ceiling and came down to boot up his desktop and logged in with his remote access code to his work computer at the lab. Around 2AM, he’d chosen a galaxy several gigalight-years away with a name classification just about as interesting as the noise it was making. He’d been listening to dozens of deep-space objects in this particular section of the universe for months in the hopes that something in a galaxy far, far away might be doing the exact thing he was. Sitting alone in their apartment drinking apple juice out of the carton and listening for other life out there that just wants to chat. 

These days he more or less identified as a job addict. He ate, breathed, and slept (when he could) listening for any sort of signal. Though he liked his team, he preferred the solitary nature of what he did at home. A chance to put himself more in a state to recognize an interesting pattern. Fewer distractions working from home. An opportunity to test out his sound-proofing ability on his doors and floor. At least, that’s what he told himself. He’d struggled with a restless, sleepless body since undergrad. _“If I can’t sleep, why not get a little work done?”_ he thought to himself. That’s always how it starts. Passing time in this manner became like an addiction on nights such as these. 

The hissing, crackling, the hums, and the occasional click or pop went on for hours and hours every night. It was like a family of gay snakes at a campfire. Abruptly, a gurgling and grumbling sound filled Larry’s ears as a feeling of uneasiness came over him. It was his own stomach and he was hungry. His recliner creaked and groaned as he lowered the footrest and raised the backrest to its upright position. He’d been watching his cholesterol and weight lately, and had been trying to keep himself from midnight junk food, though he was not as used to the new diet yet as he thought he would be, he often found himself looking for an extra something to tide him over until the sun came up. Another salad, it was. He was, however, still in the stages of feeling good about making changes to himself, and took pleasure in preparing new food in a new way, but a salad was simple and fast and did the trick just as well. His fridge hummed as he opened it up, the light filling his tiny, darkened kitchen. Spinach, yellow peppers, tomatoes, and carrots. Out came the cutting boards, the knives, the dicers, the slicers, and one big red plastic bowl for everything to live in before being devoured. Soon the static was encapsulated by the swishing of knives along peppers, the clicking of carrot bits dropping into the bowl, and the crunching of tearing up the large spinach leaves. This was another love of Larry’s. Food. It’s also the reason he now eats salads for his midnight snack. He was reluctant to start the diet in the first place, but it was either this or a lifetime of taking Statins every day until he died. Larry, at 38, knew he needed a change, and decided to make it, albeit begrudgingly. Over the past year, however, he’d come to see the silver lining in it. He’d taken up cycling and dieting, and had felt better and healthier than he ever had before. _“I should have started this a long time ago”_ he thought as he remembered the transition period. He hummed lightly to himself as he swished and swooshed the vegetable mix around with a little bit of olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar, and a dash of black pepper until the whole thing was evenly covered. He grabbed a fork from his silverware jar and made his way back to his recliner and out of his newly put-on trancelike state, crunching down on a mouthful of spinach and carrot as we walked. What he heard next stopped him dead in his tracks. 

A rhythmic series of beeps. Loud, clear, and direct, as if it was resonating from within his own walls. It certainly was not morse code, though. Larry was sure of that. He’d heard his fair share of accidental transmissions from long-dead numbers stations more times than he can count while trying to find the right frequencies early on in his hobbies. This was something much much more than that. The SERENDIP program piggy-backed off of the Arecibo array, a massive satellite dish in Puerto Rico large enough to house a small village. "Kind of hard to fake something on that scale," Larry thought, nervously. He tried to take it all with a grain of salt, but his sheer excitement and the potential thrill of such a discovery was rapidly getting the better of him. The array had been pointed at one of the furthest regions of space for months without a single sign of anything. “This is happening. This is real. Oh God. Ohhhhhhh God this is really happening.”, Larry kept muttering under his breath, nearly dropping his salad bowl as he bolted toward his computer. He stared at the screen wide-eyed and slack-jawed in disbelief that this was even happening.  
After countless hours and late nights exactly like this one, something came out to play. He was tuned-in to a dwarf star not all that dissimilar from our own; something he hadn't listened to yet. Excitedly, he fumbled for his cell phone as he struggled to put down his bowl on a flat surface. He needed to record this, even just a segment, in the event that it would stop and never be heard again. He pressed the [REC] button on the digital recorder and set it down gently on his desk, his hands trembling as he cleared a space for it. He had never heard anything like this before. This was something big. Something that would change the field as Larry knew it. And he had found it all in his own. A fluke, maybe. But Larry was sure that this would be his very own Contact story. 

He snatched at a nearby notepad and began to frantically scribble every last detail about what he was listening to. Location, sector, redshift… Anything to help pinpoint this exact location again. He noted the tones, the clarity of the signal, the harshness of the white hum in the background. He swore he could hear faint murmuring among the background noise, but that could very well have been his own blood pumping in his ears. And the sun was just starting to rise. He took his time getting ready for work. He had let the sounds record for several hours, albeit on numerous files when the memory would run out for a single recording. He made himself a quick breakfast of some leftover salad and egg white omelet and a cup of coffee, all the while letting the static continue. “It must have looped by now. There's that wiggly ‘ping’ for the third time.” It wasn't a long signal, whatever it was, but it was clearly set up to broadcast until it got a response from someone. It wasn't going anywhere. He snatched up his helmet and keys to his bike lock, stuffed his backpack full of the evidence, and headed out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> First time on AO3 as an author! Constructive criticism is HAPPILY appreciated.
> 
> Help me write better!
> 
> No schedule for updates. Just whenever I fit it in between work. :)


End file.
